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Post by Pete on Jan 8, 2018 23:34:27 GMT -5
And yes, around 1980 you would have--what--20 promotions or more in the U.S. and Canada who could draw four figures a night in their sleep? If ROH draws 1000+ today it's a story. Japan had two men's promotions and a woman's promotion all doing day-to-day business that's better than modern-day NJPW, and I would guess 1980 CMLL and UWA were doing better than 2017 CMLL and AAA.
More paying fans and more money going into more wrestlers' pockets allowing them to make a good living. Just fewer revenue streams than promotions enjoy today.
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Post by DMKII: 'The Revenge' on Jan 8, 2018 23:37:15 GMT -5
Baba was an incredible booker. He showed you could treat wrestling as a sport and that you could still do your storytelling through the actual matches through pacing and build and he had the young native talent and the experienced gaijin talent to realize his vision of 'The 4 Heavenly Pillars on the King's Road'. A great era in pro-wrestling. He was certainly a better booker than Misawa was. LOL Misawa, honestly, wasn't even my favorite of the 'Heavenly Pillars'. Kobashi was the man. Misawa just didn't know when to quit, taking those head drops into his 40's. It's sad what happened to him, and maybe it was his failure as a booker in NOAH that made him feel he needed to carry on being that ace even into his later years. I dunno though.
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Post by Vegas on Jan 9, 2018 0:09:14 GMT -5
re: PWG - it's not drawing bigger crowds than it was in recent years because they're literally drawing the same (or in one notable recent case when a show didn't sell out in advance, less) than they have been since the Reseda sellout era began in like 2011. PWG would be drawing more though if they chose to leave the Legion Hall because the shows usually sell out literally instantaneously (with that one ASW night from last October a rare exception- but even that still sold out in advance) and many who want to buy a ticket can not get one fast enough before they sell out online. So the crowd size is the same as a few years ago, but the demand for tickets is much higher today.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2018 0:34:04 GMT -5
re: PWG - it's not drawing bigger crowds than it was in recent years because they're literally drawing the same (or in one notable recent case when a show didn't sell out in advance, less) than they have been since the Reseda sellout era began in like 2011. PWG would be drawing more though if they chose to leave the Legion Hall because the shows usually sell out literally instantaneously (with that one ASW night from last October a rare exception- but even that still sold out in advance) and many who want to buy a ticket can not get one fast enough before they sell out online. So the crowd size is the same as a few years ago, but the demand for tickets is much higher today. Yeah, this has been a big talking point for years. They don't want to leave the Legion Hall. I was responding to Todd claiming they were drawing bigger crowds when they, in fact, have been drawing the same number of fans for years.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2018 0:38:24 GMT -5
He was certainly a better booker than Misawa was. LOL Misawa, honestly, wasn't even my favorite of the 'Heavenly Pillars'. Kobashi was the man. Misawa just didn't know when to quit, taking those head drops into his 40's. It's sad what happened to him, and maybe it was his failure as a booker in NOAH that made him feel he needed to carry on being that ace even into his later years. I dunno though. Eh, the head drops thing isn't something I can bang on Misawa about because Kobashi would have been right there with him taking head drops into his 40s if his knees didn't get destroyed. Misawa's problem wasn't that he didn't know when to quit so much as it was he didn't really try to get anyone else over. Jun Akiyama got screwed by Misawa's booking time and time again and for a while it honestly seemed like Misawa was doing everything he could to make Akiyama look bad. I don't know that I'd say he was a failure as a booker in NOAH, but he certainly wasn't great. They had a good 7 or so years before things started to break down but in that time period, Kobashi only put one guy over (Rikio), Misawa only really put over Akiyama and Morishima. Taue jobbed to everyone, Akiyama jobbed to everyone. They kept relying on the older guys to the point that when only the young names were left, they had no chance to draw because they hadn't been put over. There's so many frustrating booking decisions in NOAH's history. Morishima should have been ready for the title by mid 2006. Marufuji and KENTA should have had a better undercard for their classic in 2006. Kobashi should have lost to Akiyama at the Dome. This one's post Misawa but I'll still say it: KENTA should have gotten the GHC title a lot earlier than 2013.
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Post by Pete on Jan 9, 2018 0:45:27 GMT -5
In fairness, Baba was screwing up a lot of stuff even before he got sick. He completely botched Kobashi and Kawada's first singles wins over Misawa. AJPW no longer became the plummest gig in wrestling in the mid-'90s when the Big Two in the U.S. underwent a resurgence and began throwing guaranteed money all over the place, and Baba never really seemed to adjust. Nobuhiko Takada, coming off one of the biggest feuds in wrestling history, made himself available and Baba passed on the opportunity to use him. Kawada's push got de-railed because of a rather petty political game. Whether it was his direction or not, he allowed the increased emphasis on head-dropping at the expense of storytelling to happen. Not to get too down on '90s All-Japan because it was churning out great stuff well into the late '90s, but Misawa learned his sometimes-too-conservative booking style from somewhere.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2018 1:33:32 GMT -5
In fairness, Baba was screwing up a lot of stuff even before he got sick. He completely botched Kobashi and Kawada's first singles wins over Misawa. AJPW no longer became the plummest gig in wrestling in the mid-'90s when the Big Two in the U.S. underwent a resurgence and began throwing guaranteed money all over the place, and Baba never really seemed to adjust. Nobuhiko Takada, coming off one of the biggest feuds in wrestling history, made himself available and Baba passed on the opportunity to use him. Kawada's push got de-railed because of a rather petty political game. Whether it was his direction or not, he allowed the increased emphasis on head-dropping at the expense of storytelling to happen. Not to get too down on '90s All-Japan because it was churning out great stuff well into the late '90s, but Misawa learned his sometimes-too-conservative booking style from somewhere. I'd agree for sure regarding Baba botching Kawada and Kobashi's first singles wins over Misawa. There's been a lot of debate about if 6/3/94 should have been it and I think it probably should have been but then that kind of takes away some of the emotional punch of 6/9/95. I think Baba adjusted to the Big 2 throwing money around by de-emphasizing the gaijin he booked because he couldn't get the top names anymore. Really by the time 1999-2000 comes around, Vader's the only gaijin who was portrayed as any sort of real threat to the top tier. Go back to 1995 and you had Hansen, Williams and towards the end of the year Gary Albright came in. I had no idea about the planned Takada/Misawa series until a couple of years ago when I read about it in an old Observer. They were dumb to pass up on that deal because there's a chance that, had they done the matches with Misawa, PRIDE might not have been created at all and the whole landscape of pro wrestling in Japan would be way different than it wound up being. re: the head drops - I've never read or heard anything regarding how he viewed it. I only know that he hated submissions and submission finishes which is why you'd see Kawada winning via pins after the Stretch Plum. It's a weird quirk about Baba that I don't think I'll ever understand. I will say that the head dropping did get way more excessive after Baba was gone. Compare how head droppy the 10/31/98 and 6/11/99 Kobashi vs. Misawa matches are to the 1997 TCC matches and it's clear they had gotten more reliant on doing them. Read into that however you'd like, maybe it means nothing. I'm not sure.
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Post by Swarm on Jan 9, 2018 10:43:18 GMT -5
I stopped reading guys like Cornette, Russo, Bischoff, Flair and Hogan a couple of years ago. The biggest problem with American pro wrestling as a whole is that it's all the same people saying all the same things for the past 30 years.
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Post by DMKII: 'The Revenge' on Jan 9, 2018 12:02:40 GMT -5
I stopped reading guys like Cornette, Russo, Bischoff, Flair and Hogan a couple of years ago. The biggest problem with American pro wrestling as a whole is that it's all the same people saying all the same things for the past 30 years. Can't disagree with this.
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Post by DMKII: 'The Revenge' on Jan 19, 2018 5:01:09 GMT -5
Cornette's main podcast, The Experience has been really good the last several weeks. It's been fascinating to hear about late 80's Crocket/NWA-WCW. I'm hoping he continues with this theme for future episodes. I'd also love to hear him do a deep dive into his time promoting Smoky Mountain.
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